Raphael Stevens

Prices on Amazon, Walmart and Target have all increased this year as retailers grapple with higher costs due to tariffs.
Amazon prices rose more those at Walmart and Target across several shopping categories, according to an analysis of online pricing data by research firm DataWeave.
Because third-party sellers are more vulnerable to tariffs, marketplace vendors often have no choice but to pass higher costs onto the shopper.

The Amazon Prime logo on a package in Manhattan, New York City, on Sept. 16, 2023.
Michael Kappeler | Picture Alliance | Getty Images

Tariffs imposed by the Trump administration have given the country’s retailers another cost to manage during a period of persistent inflation.
While many are navigating the change with limited price increases, marketplace giant Amazon is hiking more than others.

Price increases are common for retailers trying to blunt higher costs from tariffs. Companies including Walmart and Target have said they are employing a portfolio approach to pricing following the tariff hikes, meaning they have raised prices on some items but not others.
But the companies rarely detail how much they’re increasing prices or on what items. 
Amazon prices have risen 12.8% this year on average as of the end of September, according to an analysis of online pricing data from third-party research firm DataWeave. Prices at Target were up 5.5% since the start of the year, and prices at Walmart were 5.3% higher, according to the analysis.

DataWeave reviewed roughly 16,000 items each on Amazon’s, Walmart’s and Target’s websites to conduct its analysis. The firm says it continuously collects publicly available data and captures live product and pricing information. Its data spans categories, locations and time periods, according to DataWeave’s methodology.
While each of the three retailers increased prices throughout the year, the sharpest increase came from Amazon between January and February, when prices on the surveyed SKUs — a retail industry term meaning stock keeping units — rose 3.7%, according to DataWeave’s analysis.

That jump actually came ahead of the majority of President Donald Trump’s tariffs, announced in April, and could be the result of price normalization and a pullback in discounts after the 2024 holiday selling season, DataWeave found. However, Target and Walmart increased prices by an average of 0.97% and 0.85%, respectively, during the same time frame.
DataWeave’s pricing analysis compares each retailer to its own prices over time and not to competitors — and to be sure, lower initial prices could show a higher percentage increase — but there is a common trend.
“Together, these trends show a clear hierarchy: Prices rose fastest where consumers shop by choice, not necessity, and most cautiously where they shop by need,” Karthik Bettadapura, co-founder and CEO of DataWeave, said in a statement.
Apparel prices, for example, rose 11.5% on average between January and the end of September at Amazon, Target and Walmart. Indoor and outdoor home goods prices climbed an average of 10.8% across the three retailers. Prices for pet goods and consumable products increased by an average of 6.1%, and health and beauty items saw prices jump 7% on average. Prices for hardlines, a category that tends to include goods like electronics, furniture and appliances, rose 8.3%.

At Amazon, however, prices for those same categories rose more on average than at Target or Walmart.
Apparel prices increased 14.2%, indoor and outdoor home goods prices rose 15.3%, pets and consumables prices rose 11.3%, health and beauty prices rose 13.2%, and hardlines category prices rose 11.9%.

Guru Hariharan, founder and CEO of AI-driven e-commerce data platform CommerceIQ, told CNBC he’s not surprised to see larger price increases on the marketplace leader.
“Third-party sellers are far more exposed to tariff-driven cost increases,” Hariharan said. “They don’t have the scale, inventory flexibility or private-label leverage that large retailers like Walmart or Target can use to offset costs.”
As a result, marketplace sellers often have no choice but to pass higher costs onto the shopper, he said.
While Target and Walmart also have online marketplaces, third-party sales make up a much smaller percentage of their revenue than Amazon’s, according to executives and earnings reports.
Many economists say the full impact of tariffs has yet to be felt throughout the economy as retailers work through inventory that came into the country at lower tariff levels.
“If we consider Amazon as the bellwether for U.S. commodity goods pricing, this trend is obviously expected to have a significant impact to the holiday season and economy in Q4,” Hariharan said.
Amazon’s shoppers don’t appear to be fazed by the pricing. The company said its online store sales grew 10% in the third quarter compared to the same period last year. Third-party seller services — the revenue Amazon collects on third-party sales, including commission, fulfillment, shipping and advertising fees — increased 12% over that same time.
During the company’s third-quarter earnings call, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said, “We remain committed to staying sharp on price and meeting or beating prices of other major retailers.”
The company’s Chief Financial Officer Brian Olsavsky added, “Our sharp pricing, broad selection and fast delivery speeds continue to resonate with customers.”
In response to the DataWeave price analysis, an Amazon spokesperson told CNBC, “Across the selection of any large retailer, you can cherry pick products where prices have increased—if that’s what you’re looking for—and it’s just as easy to find products, in equally large volumes, that have decreased or stayed the same in price during the same time period.
“The reality is that we offer competitive, low prices for Amazon customers and, based on our comprehensive analysis of millions of popular products customers are purchasing, we have not seen increases in price outside of normal fluctuations,” the spokesperson said. “We continue to meet or beat prices versus other retailers across the vast selection of products in our store, and that’s why customers trust Amazon as a destination for low prices and why we continue to earn more sales from customers.”
Investors and shoppers will get their latest insights into how the largest U.S. retailers are handling pricing when Target and Walmart report their third-quarter results in mid-November.
Target has said on several occasions this year it would raise prices “as a last resort” as it combats rising costs. A company spokesperson, in response to the DataWeave findings, pointed CNBC to the example of holding prices on back-to-school items like crayons, notebooks and folders steady from 2024 to 2025.
Walmart told CNBC, “We will do everything we can to keep prices as low as possible for as long as possible.” The company noted it has permanently lowered prices on 2,000 items since February – as opposed to its temporary cuts known as Rollbacks.
In early September, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said tariffs have created cost hikes for the company.
“We’ve seen a steady march up, kind of a gradual increase as it relates to our cost levels in general merchandise, which has created the single-digit inflation that we find ourselves dealing with now,” McMillon said at the Goldman Sachs global retailing conference.
The Federal Reserve estimates tariffs are contributing five-tenths or six-tenths to the core personal consumption expenditures price index, the central bank’s preferred measure of inflation, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said last week. Excluding tariffs, Powell said core PCE could be in the 2.3% to 2.4% range, rather than the 2.9% that was recorded in August.
The widely watched consumer price index, a broader measure of inflation, showed a 3% increase year over year for September. Direct CPI comparisons for the categories in DataWeave’s study are difficult to pinpoint, but prices for household furnishings rose 3.7% from January through September of this year. Personal care items increased 3.5% over the same period, and apparel prices were up 2.1%, according to CPI data.
— CNBC’s Nick Wells and Jodi Gralnick contributed to this report.
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to include Amazon’s full statement to CNBC in response to the DataWeave findings. More

E.l.f. Beauty missed revenue estimates but beat on earnings for its fiscal second-quarter earnings.
Hailey Bieber’s cosmetics line Rhode is expected to increase the company’s annual sales by $200 million this fiscal year, E.l.f. CEO Tarang Amin told CNBC Wednesday.
The cosmetics company also issued fiscal-year guidance again.

e.l.f. Beauty welcomes rhode to its family at the New York Stock Exchange, Friday, Sept. 5, 2025.
Diane Bondareff | Invision for e.l.f. Beauty | AP

Hailey Bieber’s cosmetics line Rhode is expected to increase E.l.f. Beauty’s annual sales by $200 million this fiscal year, but its new parent company’s full-year guidance still fell below expectations, leading its stock to plunge 29% Wednesday.
E.l.f., which declined to release full-year guidance last quarter, is expecting full-year revenue to be between $1.55 billion and $1.57 billion, implying 18% to 20% sales growth. That’s far below the $1.65 billion analysts were expecting, according to LSEG. 

In an interview with CNBC, CEO Tarang Amin said Rhode, which the company acquired earlier this year in a blockbuster $1 billion deal, is expected to increase its annual sales by $200 million this fiscal year and by $300 million on an annual run rate basis.
Rhode’s expected contribution to sales represents about 13% of its revenue forecast, highlighting just how important the deal is to E.l.f’s future as its outsized growth continues to moderate. It shows that E.l.f. needs Rhode to help it grow in the quarters ahead and without the acquisition, its potential for higher revenue could have been far slimmer.
On the profitability side, E.l.f. expects full-year adjusted earnings per share to be between $2.80 and $2.85, far below expectations of $3.58, according to LSEG. 
In addition to guidance, E.l.f. missed revenue estimates but beat on earnings in its fiscal second quarter results.
Here’s how the beauty company did compared with what Wall Street was anticipating, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG:

Earnings per share: 68 cents adjusted vs. 57 cents expected
Revenue: $344 million vs. $366 million expected

The company’s reported net income for the three-month period that ended Sept. 30 was $3 million, or 5 cents per share, compared with $19 million, or 33 cents per share, a year earlier. Excluding one-time items related to stock-based compensation and other non-recurring charges, E.l.f. saw earnings of 68 cents per share. 
Sales rose to $344 million, up about 14% from $301 million a year earlier. 
Amin blamed the misses on revenue and guidance on the fact the company didn’t release guidance last quarter, which he said can impact consensus estimates. 
“We actually believe both the sales that we delivered, as well as the guidance on net sales, are quite strong,” he said. 
E.l.f., which primarily sources its makeup from China, has seen its profitability crushed by President Donald Trump’s new tariffs. During the quarter, its net income fell by a staggering 84% while the company said its gross margin fell by 1.65 percentage points, primarily driven by higher tariff costs. 
Amin said the second quarter is expected to see the greatest hit from tariffs and the impact is expected to moderate sequentially from there. 
“In response to tariffs, we took our prices up $1, that was effective Aug. 1 so you’re seeing tariff impact without pricing in this quarter,” Amin said. “In the second half of the year, gross margin will actually improve sequentially. 
In the absence of major product launches from its namesake brand, which Amin said are currently in the works, Rhode is E.l.f.’s primary growth driver and for now, the business is growing by about 40% year over year, he said.
It launched in Sephora stores nationwide in September and was the biggest brand launch the retailer has seen in North America in its history, Amin said.
“It was two and a half times bigger than the number two, [Sephora’s] second biggest launch ever, so it’s performed extremely well,” Amin said. “We continue to see incredible potential for growth, not only in North America where we just launched and in the UK where we’re about to launch, but also internationally. … We definitely see global potential for that brand and see it being much bigger than it is today.”  More

Warner Bros. Discovery said last month it would explore strategic options for the company after receiving unsolicited takeover offers.
Warner Bros. Discovery plans to make an announcement on its future by Christmas, sources told CNBC.
Paramount has sent Warner Bros. Discovery’s board multiple letters explaining why its offer is more valuable to shareholders than splitting the company, signaling negotiations could soon turn more aggressive.

Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison speaks during the Bloomberg Screentime conference in Los Angeles on October 9, 2025.
Patrick T. Fallon | Afp | Getty Images

Paramount Skydance has already informed Warner Bros. Discovery it believes its $23.50 per share acquisition offer is in the best interest of shareholders. Now it has to plan on what to do if the WBD board disagrees.
WBD is openly for sale and intends to publicly announce its plans toward the middle or end of December, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named because the discussions are private. The legacy media giant, run by Chief Executive Officer David Zaslav, is deciding whether to split the company in two, sell some assets or sell the entire company.

Paramount has sent WBD’s board multiple letters explaining why its offer is more valuable to shareholders than splitting the company, signaling negotiations could turn more aggressive if WBD chooses other options. CNBC has reviewed copies of two of the letters.
A portion of a Paramount letter dated Oct. 13 specifically details the company’s argument that its latest offer of $23.50 per share “delivers superior value” for WBD shareholders compared with any reasonable plan to break up the company.
Roughly a week after receiving that letter, WBD said it would begin “a comprehensive review of strategic alternatives to identify the best path forward to unlock the full value of our assets.”
The sale process was formally launched after WBD’s announcement in June that it would split into two companies — a streaming and studios company to be called Warner Bros., which would include WBD movie properties and streaming service HBO Max, and a global networks company called Discovery Global, which would house CNN, TNT Sports and Discovery, among other businesses. Both companies would trade publicly on their own.
The strategic options aren’t mutually exclusive. Given an expected yearlong (or more) regulatory approval process, splitting the company into two and then selling one or both parts would be the most tax-efficient way to sell, according to the people familiar with the matter. The split, expected to be completed by April, is a tax-free transaction.

Comcast and Netflix have shown interest in acquiring the studio and streaming assets, CNBC has previously reported. If Warner Bros. Discovery decides its best value-creation path is to sell Warner Bros., it plans to make that announcement in December, before the split takes place, said the people familiar.
Comcast President Mike Cavanagh said last week during the company’s earnings report that such an acquisition would be complementary to its post-Versant-spin NBCUniversal business.
Warner Bros. Discovery is scheduled to announce third-quarter earnings Thursday morning.

Paramount’s hostile decision

Warner Bros. Discovery has rejected three different offers from Paramount for a full takeover of the company. The last, for $23.50 a share, was comprised of 80% cash and 20% equity, CNBC reported last month.
Paramount executives are willing to wait to see if Warner Bros. Discovery’s board decides to engage in friendly sale discussions, according to people familiar with the company’s thinking.
But, if WBD stalls in its decision or decides to move in a different direction, Paramount has discussed taking an offer directly to shareholders and formalizing a hostile bid for the company, the people said.
Warner Bros. Discovery asked Paramount to sign a nondisclosure agreement that includes a standstill provision that would prevent Paramount from launching a hostile tender offer in return for access to its data room, according to people familiar with the matter. Paramount hasn’t signed the NDA to keep its options open, one person said.
Spokespeople for Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount declined to comment.
If Paramount appeals directly to shareholders, it will argue that its offer is superior relative to Warner Bros. Discovery’s closing price on Sept. 10, the day before The Wall Street Journal reported Paramount was preparing a bid for the company. Warner Bros. Discovery closed at $12.54 per share on Sept. 10. A $23.50 per share offer is 87% higher than the so-called unaffected share price.
Warner Bros. Discovery will have to persuade its shareholders that splitting the company or merging one of its units with another entity, such as NBCUniversal, is more shareholder friendly than an outright sale.
Paramount has already laid out the math to Warner Bros. Discovery in the Oct. 13 letter obtained by CNBC. Here’s the argument from the letter, addressed to the Warner Bros. Discovery board of directors and signed by Paramount Skydance Chairman and CEO David Ellison:

“We understand that you and your leadership team are optimistic about potential value creation from your planned break-up. However, a more objective analysis yields results meaningfully below the consideration to WBD shareholders in our proposal. We have analyzed the value of the planned break-up to WBD shareholders at the end of 2028 based on optimistic assumptions, including:

Warner Bros. outperforming consensus EBITDA by ~$500 million (10%) and trading at the same multiple as Disney, despite the iconic global company that Disney represents across its businesses
Discovery Global achieving consensus EBITDA, despite meaningful headwinds, and trading at the media of analyst research “sum-of-the-parts” multiples for the business
An illustrative 25-40% M&A premium applied to Warner Bros.

Based on these assumptions, the planned break-up would generate a present value to WBD shareholders of less than $15 per share on a trading basis, or ~$18 to ~$20 per share including a robust, yet highly uncertain, M&A premium for Warner Bros.”

Paramount’s assumptions aren’t necessarily in line with WBD’s or third-party equity analysts including Bank of America’s Jessica Reif Ehrlich, who estimates a takeover $26-per-share value for Warner Bros. and a $4-per-share value for Discovery Global, according to an Oct. 21 note to clients.

Regulatory uncertainty

Paramount can also argue its deal for the entirety of Warner Bros. Discovery is well positioned to gain regulatory approval, given President Donald Trump’s recent kind words about Ellison and his father, Larry, who is one of the world’s richest people and who could contribute tens of billions of his personal money to help finance a transaction.
“I think you have a great, new leader,” Trump said of David Ellison during a CBS “60 Minutes” interview last week. “I think one of the best things to happen is this show and new ownership, CBS and new ownership. I think it’s the greatest thing that’s happened in a long time to a free and open and good press.”
In stark contrast, Trump has repeatedly bashed Comcast CEO Brian Roberts, including calling him a “lowlife” and a “slimeball.”
Some analysts have speculated Comcast could try to structure a deal with Warner Bros. Discovery where it would spin NBCUniversal and merge it with the studio and streaming assets.

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It’s unclear if shareholders will be bullish on the future prospects of either Discovery Global or Warner Bros. as stand-alone entities.
Discovery Global’s collection of linear cable networks, such as TNT, TBS and CNN, faces declining advertising rates on top of annual cable subscriptions that are falling by the millions.
Warner Bros.’ HBO Max and the Warner Bros. movie studio may command a sizable M&A premium in a sale if Comcast, Paramount and Netflix are all potential buyers, but the price would have to be high enough to convince WBD shareholders that it’s a better option than selling the entire company.
Still, even if Paramount does decide to take an offer directly to shareholders, tender offers aren’t guarantee to succeed.
A threshold of just 20% of Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders who have held the stock for at least a year is needed to call a special meeting to potentially fight off a hostile bid, according to a company filing. Those long-term Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders may argue current management and the board are the best stewards of the company.
Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal, which owns CNBC. Versant would become the new parent company of CNBC upon Comcast’s planned spinoff of Versant. More

Starbucks union baristas have voted to authorize an open-ended strike.
The strike would disrupt Red Cup Day, one of the company’s biggest sales days of the year, and potentially the broader holiday season.
Workers United began organizing Starbucks locations in 2021.

Starbucks baristas gather outside a Starbucks store as they protest against the company during a rally to demand a new contract in New York City, on October 28, 2025. The Starbucks Workers United is fighting for a new contract that delivers improved staffing hours, take-home pay, and on-the-job protections for baristas. (Photo by TIMOTHY A.CLARY / AFP) (Photo by TIMOTHY A.CLARY/AFP via Getty Images)
Timothy A.clary | Afp | Getty Images

Starbucks Workers United has authorized an open-ended strike that could begin on Red Cup Day, one of the coffee chain’s biggest sales days of the year, the union announced Wednesday.
The union is preparing to strike in more than 25 cities if it doesn’t reach a collective bargaining agreement with Starbucks by Nov. 13, when Red Cup Day falls this year. The two parties have not been in active negotiations to reach a contract after talks between them fell apart late last year. Starbucks and the union entered into mediation in February, and hundreds of barista delegates voted down the economic package Starbucks proposed in April.

The strike authorization won 92% of votes, according to Starbucks Workers United.
The union is pushing for improved hours, higher wages and the resolution of hundreds of unfair labor practice charges levied against Starbucks.
The strike would clash with Starbucks’ annual giveaway of reusable red cups bearing the company’s logo with any purchase. The freebie has become a collector’s item for the coffee giant’s biggest fans.
Without an end date in sight, the strike would also disrupt Starbucks’ broader holiday season, which falls during the company’s fiscal first quarter and is one of the busiest times of the year for the coffee chain. Customers flock to its cafes for seasonal drinks like its peppermint mocha, along with gift cards and other merchandise.

Workers United, which began organizing at Starbucks in 2021, says it now represents more than 12,000 workers across more than 650 stores. (The company told CNBC that the union only represents workers at 550 cafes, accounting for some store closures over time.)

In a statement, Starbucks said it will be ready to serve customers across its nearly 18,000 company-operated and licensed stores this holiday season.
“We are disappointed that Workers United, who only represents around 4% of our partners, has voted to authorize a strike instead of returning to the bargaining table. When they’re ready to come back, we’re ready to talk,” Starbucks spokesperson Jaci Anderson said.
Starbucks said any agreement with the union needs to reflect the reality that it “already offers the best job in retail, including more than $30 an hour on average in pay and benefits for hourly partners. The facts show people like working at Starbucks. Partner engagement is up, turnover is nearly half the industry average, and we get more than 1 million job applications a year.”
The company is in the midst of a turnaround plan under new CEO Brian Niccol, dubbed “Back to Starbucks,” that has begun to show momentum. Starbucks reported in its fiscal fourth quarter that its same-store sales returned to growth for the first time in nearly two years. The coffee chain’s global same-store sales rose 1%, lifted by international markets. Its U.S. same-store sales were flat for the quarter but turned positive in September. 
Starbucks also announced a $1 billion restructuring plan in September that involves closing some 500 of its North American stores, according to analyst estimates, and laying off 900 workers in nonretail roles.  More